The reputation and strength of CMC depends on generous and visionary donors.

Pamela B. Gann

Pamela Brooks Gann became president of Claremont McKenna College on July 1, 1999 and stepped down from office in 2013. She was CMC’s fourth president.

President Emerita Gann led a multi-year strategic planning process involving more than 130 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and trustees. Student selectivity has continued to increase with only 11.7% of the applicants for the fall 2013 being admitted. President Emerita Gann was actively involved in the expansion and replenishment of the College’s faculty across all departments, but especially in the development of the economics, government, history, literature, philosophy, psychology, and science faculties. Over 65 percent of CMC’s tenured and tenure-track faculty were hired during her presidency. Two new research institutes were created. The Financial Economics Institute was designed to provide a curricular sequence in financial economics and to support faculty and student research in financial economics. The Center for Human Rights Leadership built on CMC’s historic strengths in the area of Holocaust studies and international relations. The Kravis Leadership Institute was extensively expanded to include more professors, over 125 summer student leadership internships in the United States and around the world, and the Henry R. Kravis Leadership Prize to recognize exceptional leaders in the non-profit sectors in the world. The College expanded its commitment to a global liberal arts education, including the creation of a Center for Global Education. It added new resources for the education of responsible citizens through the establishment of a Center for Civic Engagement. The College also pursued a significant revision in its campus master plan that includes over $200 million in proposed new facilities.

Prior to her arrival in Claremont, President Emerita Gann served for 11 years as dean of the Duke University School of Law and as a faculty member for 24 years. Her academic fields are federal income taxation and international economic law, including international trade and investments.

President Emerita Gann has an extensive background in international education, including teaching American law and international trade in the People’s Republic of China, France, Denmark, and at the Salzburg Seminar, Salzburg, Austria, as well as an intensive training session in Hanoi, where she helped train 100 Vietnam government officials in preparation for bilateral trade agreement negotiations. She has visited at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan, and was awarded an International Affairs Fellowship by the Council on Foreign Relations, through which she worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Gann has been an active leader in law, higher education, and international policy. She was elected to membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Women’s Forum, the Society of International Business Fellows, and the American Law Institute. She is an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She serves as a member of the Deloitte Council on the Advancement of Women (WIN); she is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, She is a Trustee of the Southwestern Law School; the Committee for Economic Development, and The Institute for the International Education of Students (IES Abroad). She is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education, the Presidents' Council of the NCAA Division III, and the Harvard Law School Visiting Committee. She was awarded the “Woman Lawyer of the Year” award by the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys.